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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

italian meatball soup

To continue this week's Tasty Kitchen adventure, we're making Italian meatball soup (click link for recipe)! This recipe was submitted by the Pioneer Woman herself, and boy does it make your house smell good. I had a hard time waiting for the meal to finish...I was starving.

For this recipe, you make your own little meatballs (they were so cute!). And, as usual, I did make a few changes to this recipe.Her meatballs used 3/4 ground beef, Parmesan, parsley, egg, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, and lemon juice.

I decided to use ground turkey...and I had a full pound. I really didn't want to throw away that last quarter of a pound, so I just threw it in. What I didn't use was the Parmesan cheese - I left it out completely.

When you make meatballs, you are supposed to mix all of the ingredients together and form the mush that is left over into little balls...obviously. She also tells you to refrigerate the balls for 30 minutes before cooking them. I started to make the balls and put them in a bowl, but my mush was so...well...mushy...that I ended up just refrigerating the whole bowl of mush without balling it first. I don't think it made much of a difference.

When it came time to make the balls, I didn't feel like getting my hands dirty. And my mush was really mushy! So I pulled out the trusty cookie dough scooper that my husband got for Christmas - it worked! It worked very well, actually. And my hands remained clean. I like things clean. :-)

After you cook the meatballs in a skillet, you are supposed to remove those and get your broth going. One of the things you are supposed to do is put some herbs in a cheesecloth and boil them in your broth. I didn't have any cheesecloth lying around (does anybody?), so I started stuffing the herbs into my tea strainer. I should have taken a picture. Sorry! Needless to say, it worked! In fact, it was such a success that I don't know that I'll ever buy cheesecloth again.

After your broth boils a while, you chunk in some veggies - onion, carrot, potato, celery, and cabbage. So, I pulled out the leftover contents of my bag of coleslaw. I love being lazy (practical?).

The final product tasted wonderful. Really, really wonderful. Way to go, Pioneer Woman! You've made a beautiful soup.

My rating - We decided to give this dish 4 out of 5 mitts. It was good...very good, in fact. But it was so much work! There was the meatballs, the chopping of veggies, the boiling of broth, stuffing herbs into a tea strainer...I get tired just thinking about it. And it wasn't incredibly filling, surprisingly. But...it was so, so good.

So good.

Italian Meatball Soup (with my modifications)Meatballs:

1 pound ground turkey

3 T.fresh parsley, minced

1 egg

2 clovesgarlic, minced

1/2 t.salt

1/2 t. black pepper

1/4 t.ground oregano

2 t.lemon juice

Soup:

3 T. olive oil

7 cups low sodium beef broth

2 cupswater

1/2 t. salt

2 T. tomato paste

3/4 cups onion, chopped

3/4 cupscarrots, chopped

3/4 cups celery, chopped

1 cuppotato, chopped (unpeeled)

½ poundschopped cabbage

Stuff in a tea strainer:

4 T. fresh parsley, minced

2 bay leaves

1 t. peppercorns

To make meatballs, combine all meatball ingredients and mix well. Chill for 30 minutes then shape into small balls. Gather 4 tablespoons parsley, bay leaves, and peppercorns in a tea strainer.
After chilling the meat, heat olive oil over medium-low heat in a heavy pot.
Briefly brown meatballs, then remove to a plate. To pot, add beef stock,
water, salt, tomato paste, and herbs. Bring to a boil, then simmer
30 minutes. Add onion, carrots, celery, and potatoes. Simmer 15 more minutes. Remove herbs. Add cabbage and meatballs. Bring to a boil, then simmer 8 to 10 minutes.